To go with the trailer below, there’s also a collection of new screenshots to stare at and attempt to decipher. Like they’re a message from the Illuminati. Click on each, including the one above, for maximum fullsizement.

Sometimes that indicates that the stills of the environments don’t look very good, but when you’re moving around in them they are great. Remember when Doom 3 screenshots came out and everyone they thought it looked like shit until gameplay clips were released?

Doom 3 was an ugly, ugly game. It’s just that the gamer is a shallow beast, and if you tell him that there is “per-pixel lighting”, he will ignore that that lighting makes everyone look like a plastic action figure.

Yeah these screenshots need some beefier AA. I realise this game is partly aimed at the fans of the original who clearly didn’t mind the lacking graphics at the time, but lets be honest – whether they like it or not, all new games are judged against Cryengine or Unreal Engine 3. I’d consider myself one of those elitists that snorts at those who judge a game by graphics, but I have to admit i’m a tiny but underwhelmed by these shots and the wooden animation in the video.

Sadly, the current generation of “gamers” thinks that in order to have a realistic looking game you have to fill it bloom, dof and other useless effects to make it shinny.
If something has clean, detailed visuals (which considering the style of the game are clearly intentional) they claim it sucks.

I have my doubts about this game. Im sure it’ll be fun, but Im unsure if I’ll feel as involved playing it as I did the other two games (yes, I liked Invisible war, sue me) but seriously, I dont see what people complains about, it’s one of the best looking games I’ve seen in this generation.

Thats my problem though. It’s blocky blurry visuals, and they seem to ruin the clean style they are going for. But that could well be the screenshots rather than the game. It does look like it’s been smeared in Vaseline.

I really like the look of the world, but doesn’t the main character look like he was designed by a 12 year old who watches too much anime? Or is that just my hatred for anime being a bit ott?

Also, boom and depth of field aren’t useless effects. They are usually used very badly by developers, as you say to make people think the game is shiny. But when used effectively they can look amazing. In fact it looks like they are using bloom on the lights in those screenshots.

They don’t look to bad to me, i think you lot are just nitpicky really. Also I find the graphic whoreness basically is one of the things ruining this industry at the moment. i have no problem with DOF, the bloom sometimes is a bit to much on these games but nothing that detracts from the exerience,

“Sadly, the current generation of “gamers” thinks that in order to have a realistic looking game you have to fill it bloom, dof and other useless effects to make it shinny.
If something has clean, detailed visuals (which considering the style of the game are clearly intentional) they claim it sucks.”

Are we looking at the same picture? It’s massively saturated with shininess… which makes it look entirely un-clean.

I hate Bloom, DOF, motion blur, etc, as I find it looks incredibly artificial and is frankly just irritating; those above screneshots look like they’re about to get a massive pile of it smashed into them, not including the vaseline covered guy already.

Isn’t “graphics whoring” basically dead or bleeding in Microsoft’s gutter anyways? As long as we are on the tail end of the current generation of consoles, games are just going to look this way. (DX9, etc,) I haven’t seen impressive graphics on the PC since Metro 2033 and some finer details like Valve’s facial animations.

These screenshots look acceptable / good, but they are nothing to write home about. (And lets face it; your mum’s not interested in DX:HR anyways.) This is not going to change until PC exclusive developers like Crytek, Valve and CD Projekt show us their next big offering.

Crying for better graphics at this point is very reasonable to me, because we are not making use of the hardware that’s running our games, currently. Good art direction can only go so far, especially for the 90% of AAA games that are going down the photo-realistic route.

I’m pretty sure that is a typo. It’s supposed to say Pingu. Thats where they keep overstocked Pingu plush toys and various other bits of Pingu Merchandise, toothbrushes, bathtoys, playsets, that kind of thing.

“…Pangu was the first living being and the creator of all in Chinese mythology. In the beginning there was nothing in the universe except a formless chaos. However this chaos coalesced into a cosmic egg for about 18,000 years. Within it, the perfectly opposed principles of Yin and Yang became balanced and Pangu emerged (or woke up) from the egg. Pangu is usually depicted as a primitive, hairy giant with horns on his head and clad in furs…”

If we learn anything from these shots it’s that Jensen finds floors and barriers really fascinating. See how he looks at the floor even when shooting people in screen 1. His natural affection for floors on display in screen 2. And his close barrier inspection of screen 3, so engrossed in his inspection that he hasn’t noticed he’s trying to hide behind a barrier that’s mostly transparent.

What a shame, you can’t even come up with an appropriate insult and instead type one meant for verbal communication. Yes actually, it’s quite obvious from all the information we have about the game which include much more than these screenshots and the last trailer. With extensive gaming experience comes the ability to somewhat identify the potential and appeal of games without actual hands-on time. I wouldn’t expect kids to understand, so don’t feel bad. Not that I saw you confronting anyone having a positive opinion based on the same information so obviously you had a different reason for this.

Al3xand3r: Sorry dude, didn’t mean to offend. It’s just that everybody else’s comments were taking the piss and yours were so doleful… I take it back. Just promise me you’ll use that special ability of yours for the greater good and not some unthinkable evil… like games journalism.

Don’t worry, games journalism has a use for this special ability called “common sense” but only when it arrives to the most positive conclusions known to man. Even if the publication’s review article that’s trashing the same game a previous preview or opinion piece praised comes just a few days later!

I’m hoping this game won’t suffer from FEAR syndrome i.e. the whole game being brought down by uninspired environments. I’m sorry to say, but the idea of infiltrating a laboratory and fighting corporate commandos isn’t exactly novel enough to make me pee my pants in excitement. Deus Ex’s more plausible, human levels, like Hell’s Kitchen, Hong Kong and the Templar Cathedral were better than the game’s laboratories.

i pulled a bit at the side of my mouth, which could be considered a small grin. not bad.

I dunno about this game tho… i really don´t.
Screens look good to me, apart from the art design of the main character- looks like some guy who watched matrix for the 14th time decided to mix that up with the awful asian graphics design ethos-fashion going around.
I love “Akira” and “Ghost in the Shell”- im not anti Manga or whatever…its just that i hate The Matrix…. so much…. Whats wrong with me?

I´m not that well informed on the particulars of this one, but usually sequels from another team than the original one, are worse…. usually A LOT worse …. “Aliens 2″ and “Rambo IV” are the only exceptions i could think of- and those are movies.

I couldn´t think of a single game that did exactly that.

I´d love a System Shock 3 – by Someone Who Had a Clue-
It would be like a more complex version of Dead Space, hows that?

Every characters features are looking so ridicoulously boring-model like these days- Remember Batou from Ghost in the Shell- he had a bit of character with his flat boxing nose and such…

Not being totally fair here, as its sci-fi, and in the future everyone with money will probably look like standard-type models or something….
Just getting a bit bored with the good-looking-in-general symmetric photo-model type faces, particularly in Asian pre-rendereds.

As for hating the Bloom effect, you can just turn it off, can´t you?
I think it is a slight improvement overall, and as for the rubberyness- true, but the programmers should´ve set it to slightly more matt, than extremely reflective- it can still be saved!